Through painting, drawing, photography, sculpture and installation, Hew Locke OBE RA (b. 1959) explores the languages of colonial and post-colonial power, and the symbols through which different cultures assume and assert identity. Fusing historical source material with a keen interest in current affairs, often through the juxtaposition or modification of existing artifacts, Locke focuses attention especially on the UK, the monarchy and his childhood home of the then newly independent Guyana. Locke spent his formative years in Guyana before returning to the UK to complete an MA in sculpture at the Royal College of Art in 1994. Locke's work is in the permanent collections of the Tate, London, UK; Brooklyn Museum, New York, NY; Pérez Art Museum Miami, FL; and British Museum, London, UK, among others. His work has been the subject of numerous solo exhibitions including Here’s the Thing which opened at Ikon Gallery, Birmingham, UK, in 2019 before traveling to the Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art, Kansas City, MO, and the Colby College Museum of Art, Waterville, ME. In March 2022, Locke presented The Procession at Tate Britain, London, UK, later travelling to numerous institutions including the Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston, MA. Locke unveiled Gilt, the Façade Commission at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, in September 2022. His groundbreaking show, Hew Locke: what have we here?, opened at the British Museum, London, UK, in Fall 2024. Hew Locke: Passages, the largest solo exhibition of Locke's work to date, debuted at Yale Center for British Art, New Haven, CT in 2025.